“You saw me downstairs just a few minutes ago,” she teased against my lips, kissing me back. My tongue parted her mouth impatiently. She tasted like rum and smelled like lemon. Ella normally drank Vodka sunrise and swore by her jasmine and orange blossom scent.
Huh. That was weird.
We exchanged more kisses and she hesitated before laying soft pecks down my jaw and neck. Everything felt off. The fingers fisting my T-shirt. The taste of her lips. The scent of her skin.
When I threaded my fingers through her hair, her length was shorter and the strands stiff with curls. Was this her surprise? A new haircut?
Then my muddled brain registered her words. I drew away from her touch, my skull throbbing. “S-Saw you downstairs?”
“Yeah.” She traced a finger down chin. “When you told me to meet you here.”
I blinked, fighting the bizarre sensation moving through me. I was sweating profusely at this rate, feeling like I wanted to crawl out of my skin while simultaneously trying to find shelterwithin. “W-What are you talking about? I haven’t seen you since yesterday, baby.”
In the dark, I think she shook her head or tilted it. “What areyoutalking about?”
That’s when I noticed something else. Her voice. It was completely wrong. Unlike her usual soft tone. She was slurring too. As though she’d drunk way too much.
“Ellie? W-What’s…going on?” My fingers traced down the column of her throat, halting when I didn’t feel the heart-shaped necklace around her neck.
Ella never, ever took it off. She promised me.
“W-Who’s Ellie?”
My tongue felt glued to the roof of my mouth, unable to release a word or sound.
Who’s Ellie? What is she talking about?
She reached over to the bedside table and turned on the lamp.
And that’s when I saw her through a fuzzy vision.
Theherbeing someone who was not my Ellie.
Tall and curvy with blond hair and crimson-painted lips. Her expression was shocked and her eyes were glazed. “O-Oh my God. You’re not him.”
Him?
Anger and horror caromed through my trance like a splash of ice-cold water awakening me. No. No. No. I had just made out with a girl who wasn’t my fucking girlfriend. MyElla. “W-Who are you—”
I never got to finish my sentence. My door burst open. Noise from the party filtered inside my room and yanked us out of whatever warped reality we found ourselves in.
Lo and behold, my real girlfriend stood at the threshold.
Heartbreak evident all over her face. “Cade?”
C H A P T E R2 2
The Betrayal
Ella
The past - 3 months ago
There were two reasons why I was running late to Josh’s party.
The first was a penis-shaped piñata. A perfect present for my future brother-in-law. Hauling it into the trunk of my orange Porsche Cayenne—an early birthday gift frompapáandmamá—was a pain in the ass, since the monstrosity was five feet tall and took multiple tries before I managed to stuff it in a way where it wouldn’t block my rearview mirror. I reminded myself that watching Josh beat a cardboard dick with a stick in front of two hundred people would not only be entertaining…but the highlight of tonight’s celebration. So alas, totally worth the extra effort.
The second reason why I was running late?
